Where Chris muses on sports, pop culture, particle physics and whatever else is on his mind at a particular time.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

What is scaring me today

You know what scares me? Well, other than STDs, shark attacks and seeing all the idiots I graduated high school with becoming far more successful than me. The two things that currently scare me are having children and growing old. These two things became readily apparent when emailing with Graham over the last 24 hours.

First, having children scares me for a multitude of reasons, but here’s what scares me today. You know how schools sometimes have those “go to work with your Dad” days. Well, if I have a kid, and I’m on the same career path, my child is going to sit next to me in my cubicle and watch me rant and write funny little stories to Graham for about 1-2 hours a day. My kid might as well start be given a pocket protector and a World of Warcraft character at birth because I don’t think my child will recover from the day after “going to work with Dad” day. My kid will have to sit and listen to stories from other children talking about going to the police station with their detective dad or sitting quietly in court watching their lawyer father. And what will my kid do, he’ll shrink in the corner like Lloyd in the gas station bathroom. So yeah, I got that going for me.

And what does growing old have to do with any of that? Well, see the emails below with Graham.

ChrisThanks to you pointing out the Beer Pong article, I couldn't help but click on this one. Why do men turn 40 and become complete f-ing morons? I'm so scared of writing something similar to this when I hit 40. If Geoff Calkins and Rick Reilly had a love-child, it would be like the anti-Christ of coolness, if you will.

He sits there and tells me not to sign up to be a Super Bowl halftime show fan, like I even have the option. Thanks for telling me not to spend about $500 to fly to Tampa, find a hotel for a few days, run around in the halftime show and go home. It really was an option for me, but now that you told me it's not fun, I'm not going to do it.

Also, thanks for letting me know that the people on the field don't get paid. I had no idea. I thought those people were millionaires when they were done.

I also love the fact that he talks about how crappy the volunteers have it. He talks about how terrible the rehearsals are, except, cause he's stupid f-ing Rick Reilly, he didn't even go to the rehearsals. He didn't even have it bad. He just had to show up about 20 minutes before the concert, run onto the field and then leave. For him to say not to be a volunteer fan, it's not even because he had it that bad. It's because it was that bad for the people that had to actually go through the entire process. Agh!!!!!

And why does he put the word fan in quotation marks throughout the story? Explain that please.

Seriously, I give you permission to shoot me in the face if I ever become this lame. Then again, you'll hit 40 before me, so I'll probably have to put you down and get Ross Wooden to take me out when I hit that age. The fact that Reilly is a millionaire and I'm sitting in my cubicle is too much for me to handle. He must have made a deal with the devil.

GrahamDo you realize ESPN paid something like $15 million to get him away from SI? It's staggering. The sad thing is, 3 or 4 times a year he takes a column and knocks it out of the park, reminding you how he got there in the first place. The rest of the time he's just mailing it.

Hey, kind of like Mitch Albom. And Mike Lupica.

Seriously, it's incredible that these guys have some of the most coveted jobs in sports and are as lazy and complacent as they are.

ChrisI don't buy the lazy thing. I really don't. The column wasn't just a product of laziness. It was downright lame and stupid. Look, lazy I can identify with. I really can. If he just had a running diary while sitting at home watching the game like (Bill) Simmons, well, I get that, I really do. But this crap isn't even a product of laziness. He actually went to Tampa and had to think up a story and this is what he comes up with. And then, he gets it completely wrong. Those people are out there at halftime so they have a story to tell the rest of their life. Sure, there's a bit more work to the volunteer gig than either you or I expected, but that's the price you pay to be able to say, "I was on the field during the wardrobe malfunction" or "I was 15 feet from The Boss when he slid across stage." I'm serious, we need doctors to look into how one becomes so lame over time. It's inevitable, too. It scares the hell out of me, much like the thought of colonoscopies.

And here's another thing. If people turn lame at 40, then they become downright senile at sometime around 65.

I was walking out of Target yesterday and this 65 year old man goes straight through the parking lot stop sign and crosswalk going about 30 mph (which is about 70 mph in both senior citizen and parking lot terms). After he rolls through, he has to come to a stop because one of those automated machines has about 20 carts attached to it and is in the way. No one is controlling the machine and it isn't moving. So what does the old man do? He honks at it for about 10 seconds and drives around.

First off, at what point will I start getting mad at inanimate objects? What causes this to happen to someone? Does this guy yell at his soup if it's not hot enough?

Second, you could see the carts were there from a mile away. He could've turned down about 5 different rows to avoid running into the problem. I blame him for it all. I looked around as it was happening to make sure that I wasn't in some sort of dreamlike hell. No one seemed to notice the old man but me. I left quickly while saying The Lord's Prayer.

GrahamThat's terrific, it really is. It reminds me of an episode of “The Simpsons” where Grandpa Simpson is telling a story about the time he appeared in the newspaper. He produced a copy, and above a photo of him is the headline "Old man yells at cloud".

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About Me

Graham and Chris met while both worked for the Memphis Grizzlies. They bonded over a shared love for George Costanza's "Jerk Store" line.
Graham is now a freelance writer in Portland. Chris has never left Memphis for longer than 10 days, and, as cliché as it sounds, works in a cubicle almost 35 hours a week.
Drop us a line at Follow Chris on twitter @ChrisRTS or Graham @gmkendrick